U.S. Attorney's Office files request to prosecute Paul Bergrin on other charges

Sarah Rice/For The Star-LedgerThe U.S. Attorney’s Office today filed a formal request with the judge asking to go to trial next on a litany of other charges against high-profile attorney Paul Bergrin.

NEWARK — Just eight days after a mistrial was declared in Paul Bergrin’s murder case, the U.S. Attorney’s Office today filed a request with the judge asking to try him on a litany of other charges.

Bergrin, once a prominent Newark defense lawyer, was accused of inducing and conspiring to orchestrate the 2004 shooting of FBI informant Kemo Deshawn McCray.

According to prosecutors, Bergrin committed the alleged crimes to shield himself from being fingered as a major cocaine supplier to a Newark gang, and so client William Baskerville could beat drug charges. McCray had bought cocaine from Baskerville while wearing a recording device, prosecutors said.

After a hung jury resulted from the six-week federal trial, it then became U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman’s choice whether to retry Bergrin in the McCray case. Minutes after declaring the mistrial, U.S. District Judge William Martini also set Jan. 4, 2012, as the start date for a next trial of Bergrin.

In their request filed today, signed by Fishman and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gay, prosecutors wrote, "The Government formally requests to try the balance of the Second Superseding Indictment."

If Martini grants the request, the McCray-focused counts of murder and murder conspiracy against Bergrin would sit on the shelf — and perhaps would never be retried. Still, among the 31 other counts charged in a vast June indictment against Bergrin, the ones the government wants to try next, are several that include allegations of orchestrating McCray’s murder.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Bergrin’s supporting counsel, Lawrence Lustberg, filed papers arguing the judge himself should acquit Bergrin in the recently ended McCray trial because the government failed to present enough evidence.

On Wednesday night, prosecutors filed a notice of appeal with Martini, informing the judge the government intends to appeal his barring of certain evidence they would want to use in a potential retrial of Bergrin on the McCray murder and conspiracy counts.

During the recent trial, Martini kept out evidence of Bergrin allegedly making statements about arranging the murder of witnesses in unrelated cases.

Among the charges Fishman’s office is now prioritizing are murder-for-hire allegations that say in 2008 Bergrin plotted to use a hit man to kill a witness against a client facing drug charges.

Prosecutors say they have audio recordings of Bergrin telling the hit man, who was actually a confidential informant, to make the murder appear to be the result of a home-invasion robbery. In the trial that ended with the hung jury, prosecutors did not present any audio or other recordings of Bergrin allegedly telling gang associates in Newark to take out McCray.

Lustberg also informed Martini on Wednesday that if the other 31 counts are next up, he would seek to sever the counts related to the murder-for-hire allegations and have the next trial be on those counts only.